Today we’re on a boat, just 12 of us, down the coast to Amalfi then along lunch at Portofino, then back to Sorrento. We are leaving at 8:45am by a bus down the crazy Sorrento ravine to the docks.

I decide to try a coffee at the next door bar with Il Banditore. The coffee is very very good, strong, smooth and flavour, just like a very good Australian coffee. It cost €2, very reasonable. I also buy my beers from here, Peroni stubbies are €2 each, no need to buy bigger packs that I have to carry back to the villa.

The bus is on time, the weather is fine, the sky is blue, it’s going to be warm, we get to the dock and there is a lot of people waiting for boats of different varieties. Our boat is about a 30 foot, seats at the back and an area at the front, Andreas is our driver, I’d say age is probably 40’s, has the swarthy sea dog look about him, an ear ring like a pirate, and a smile.

The sea is a bit choppy, luckily The Navigator has taken a Travel Calm tablet. We head south west following the Sorrentine Peninsular around to the Amalfi coast. It’s quite a distance but the boat ride is relaxing, the breeze off the Medditeranean is like an air conditioner set on exactly the right temperature. The water is a dark inky blue, and clear. The granite cliffs run down to the water with the occassional village on a small beach and no evidence of a way to get to them other than by sea. Occasionally we can see a road around the cliffs, I’m assuming this is the famous access road to the Amalfi coast, used in many movies over the years. We pass Portofino on the left ( sorry, Port side), Where we are long lunching later on.

First stop is the village, probably a town really, of Amalfi. It’s crawling with tourists, I hear American, English, Italian and eastern European being spoken, it’s quite warm. The two hours we have starts with a coffee and lemon cake, just outside the cafe a traffic cop with a gun directs the scooters, buses, cars, trucks and people, arms waving, whistle blowing trying to get some semblance of order with the crazy traffic at his corner.

A walk up the hill via the main street which is all touristy shops selling lemincino, Amalfi t shirts, ceramic shops with lemons painted in the glaze, cafes, a huge church sits near the bottom of the street.

We all gather at the dock at the rendezvous spot at the right time, military precision.

It’s hot in Portofino, we find that our lunch appointment time has been delayed and instead of 1:30 it’s now at 2:30, not sure what happened there. The wait time is killed by looking and walking up the steep streets but too steep for me, and too hot so I/we sit like homeless people on the steps to kill time.

When we get to the table, we have a fantastic view over the sea, the food is very good. I had a caprese salad and sea bass fillet in lemon sauce ( delicious), The Navigator had arrancini and veal chop with mushrooms for a main. Amazingly nothing is left on her plate, except a small bit of meat on the bone which Ciclista Dismountus tidies up for her.

We are later than expectedback to the boat, Andreas bungs on a bit of an Italian hissy fit, hands waving, leaning down into L’agentes face. He says the biss has gone broke, last day this boat gies out, he works eith hours not twrnty hours a day…… on on on and f….g on. Not sure whether this is a ploy to secure a decent tip or real. Anyhow, he calms, we head back towards Sorrento hugging the cliffs stop for a couple of swims( only 4 swimmers) and we get back into Sorrento at about 7:30pm, it just getting dark. We take the €1.29 elevator to the top of the cliff to avoid walking the ravine back to town.

A cup of tea and a snack and everyone retires. It’s been a long wonderful day eating and on the water.

Ciao from Sorrento – Pauolo

I think today will be a shopping day. The Navigator got some news this morning about changes at her work, interesting times for her, but pretty hard when we’re overseas.

We started the days missing the English family,  they were woken early by a renegade whipper snipperer, at 4am, but a few others including were woken as well. The rule of “quiet enjoyment” doesn’t seem to apply here.

The usual brekky, then off to Sorrento to shop. The Navigator, being a world class shopper is happy about going shopping and soon scores a pair of shorts, some ear rings, some nick narky presents and is also sizing up some other potential purchases for later on.

Lunch is at the Foreigners Club, it has a sensational view over the Bay of Naples. Eight of us have a very nice lunch and discuss plans for dinner tonight. It’s the men’s turn to cook, so let’s see how this ends up.

Dinner is prepared by The Men’s Kitchen, sort of a version of the men’s shed except its a bunch of ( lets say) later middle aged chaps cooking instead of wood turning or what ever they do.
The background : at lunch, for those that turned up, a decision was made for the men to cook a scratch up pasta dinner, chairperson of the board – Sonya (aka L’agente) oversaw the team selection, and signed off on the finance – The Team is Peter (aka Ciclista Dismountus), the sauce of divorce, Rob ( The Architect) in charge of quality control, John ( Il Banditore) pasta masta, Paulo who has no cooking skills except as a shit kicking notetaker takes on finance and logistics.

Il Maestro was not present at lunch, no  note from his mother, we assume for reasons yet to be advised. Needless to say the kitchen was quiet, and worked efficiently without him,  however we do thank him for his contribution by not being there. There is no option of a reply by Il Maestro..

I read a poem, written at a bar in Chiang Khong, northern Thailand overlooking the Mekong River as I was contempting a little Buddhist service for putting some of Tim’s ashes in the Mekong that day.

Dinner is a success, the pasta and sauce plus the salad is great, capped off by icecream cake.

Early to bed tonight, tomorrow we have a boat ( just us) and we’re visiting the Amalfi coast, shopping and lunch in Positano, may a swim in the Mediteranean later.

Ciao from Pauolo in Sorrento

The couple or three gin and tonics yesterday afternoon as well as the travel weariness dulled my brain a bit last night so what I wrote wasn’t much chop really. I didn’t actually assassinate (metaphorically) any characters, except for a greedy taxi driver who didn’t accept the opportunity to rip us off.

I hate losing things, and yesterday I did, it was a small leather coin purse with a few Euros in it so money wise inconsequential, but it erks me that I can’t remember where I last had it or used it. I doubt it was pickpockets, I think I put it down to my own stupidity, that’s probably what annoys me. Anyway move on Pauolo it’s gone, The Navigator will be looking for an aged care placement for me next.

It was really good to catch up with everyone yesterday. We set up the garden furniture in a “circle of truth” formation and then told a lot of lies.

This property “Villa St Angelo Sorrento” used to be a nunnery I believe. It’s a 3 story with one  basement bedroom, stone and brick, views from the top over gardens to the nearby Mediteranean. Its beautiful. We did a lotto type draw for bedrooms, there are 7 or 8 of them and almost the same number of bathrooms. Via Cocumella is the street it’s on, a bit busy with traffic but shutters cut most of that out. The furnishing is lovely and there are a number of living areas you can relax in. The garden has a great outdoor setting and security gate access keeps riff raff out. Last night it kept a few of us in, we couldn’t get the code to work to let us out to go the the restaurant. There is a lift if you need it. The place is a great choice.

Disaster averted this morning, LAgente had locked herself in the bathroom. I have no idea how this happened It wasn’t funny, apparently, for he at least, as her husband( Il Banditore) was chortling outside the door in his undies trying to free her. To be fair he did look like he was trying hard, but one cant be sure of that entirely. If he’s not successful in freeing her we could be one less traveller to feed, a problem for LAgente but good for us, more food’s what I mean. Anyway after employing some remarkable flexibility and a long reach he gets the key from her via a window and she escaped a certain death from starvation in a Sant Agnello bathroom. Maybe I could sell that story? There is no photographic evidence of this event but its all true. Revenge is a dessert best served cold, see what the day brings.

I’m not sure what’s on the menu today but a walk and relaxation is what I feel will do me good.

Breakfast is fruit and toast in the garden, after an early shop. It’s very pleasant, there a nice feel about everything.

We split into different groups and head off for a little exploring. It’s a very short walk down the hill to the cliff over the water at Sant Agnello. Some of us walk through the tunnel and steps down to the water rather than pay €18 for the lift and access to the hotel. The public area water is dirty, there are some people swimming in the detritus in the water but there’s no way I’m putting even my feet in the filthy water.

However, conversely the view across the bay to Naples and Mt Vesuvius is stunning. There are lots of boats on the Mediteranean, a five masted barque (ask me how I know this?), there’s a large new motor yacht called AMO with what looks like a 15-16 foot tender and a huge yacht with lots of masts ( don’t ask me what sort of boat it is) and the ferries coming from and to Naples.

Our legs are a little jelly like by the time we make it back to the top. So the ones who took the smart option and stayed up the top of the cliff are looking remarkably relaxed. A birra ( Italian for beer) aperol for some, fixes rehydration issues and lactic acid in our legs.

Lunch is panini’s from a little cafe on the way back to the villa. Now it was a simple lunch order that that had the potential to be complicated by the ordering, but it all came through ok in the end.

The Navigator and I head to Sorrento walking the streets, its a hot afternoon so we walk on the shady side of the street, past a football stadium where Sorrento are playing Portici, a serious game because tickets are €15. we hear later that Ciclista Dismountus, Il Professore, Il Maestro and Capo de Maestro went into the game near the end, there sounds to be a bit of an atmosphere in the stafium as we walk past.

The Sorrento shopping area is pretty busy for a Sunday, so a renergising gellato is found. We walk the shops, get the lay of Sorrento, the amazing chasm that the road goes down to the water looks spooky to drive, its quite a nice shopping area.

Back at the villa, Cinquantacinque is busting to get a lime from the next door tree, I have a crack at getting one using a fork and another cooking implement that I can’t name. Unfortunatley the spike on the top of the fence almost punctures my nipple and I lose the fork over the fence. To be fair to everyone else, all with human frailties, I admit failure, rare but not unknown for me. Retrieving the fork is another problem that I doubt I’ll solve, and I’m wondering if there is such a profession as a nipple doctor, I could need a transplant, its a bit painfull.

As we’re chilling in the garden, we hear a pitiful cry from an upstairs window, we see a topless Il Banditore with his head through the window asking if his wife might show soem sympathy because hes locked in the bathroom. He who had laughed at her earlier in the day is now in the same predicament. He’s a sorry sight, with a worried look like he’s been charged three times for a meal. L’agente has tears in her eyes, revenge clearly on her mind as she remains unmoved on the lounge chair downstairs. Luckily he resolves the issue himself but is suitably quiet when he decends the stairs to join us.

A drink is had while Regazzo and Della head for dinner with family, then the rest of us head towards the water for dinner at a venue yet to be determined. Il Maestro leads the charge, in charge of securing a venue, however he too fails at the task he accepted, first option is booked out, and 2nd option we walk in to a sour faced jowelly maitre de who looks at us like we’re covered in pig manure and we quietly decide to move on before we order. The Navigator points out a back door and we exit quietly, heads down, no eye contact, reach the street and walk very briskly away. Unfortunatley The Architect and Cinquantacinque also try the no eye contact strategy and walk the wrong way, straight past the jowlley sour faced waiter, they mumble something unintelligible and keep walking, we eventually find them.

The Navigator, gastronome extrordinaire, specialising in well cooked red meat and potatoes, with an extreme aversion for the colour green, guides us to her choice, The Hotel Corallo restaurant. It looks expensive, upmarket, the waiters look smart, and it sort of ends expensive but the food was fantastic. The Sea bass, char grilled prawns and octopus is very good and the dessert very nice. It was a fun night with a little stress regarding what it might cost, only the odd menu had prices in it but the cost wasn’t too bad really. We missed Regazzo and Della but family commitments earlier had tied them up.

Day four has been great, tomorrow we doing a trip to Pompei together, leaving from Sant Agnello train station at 9:14am for a 10am tour. I’m really looking forward to this.

Caio from Sorrento – Paulo Sunday 11th September 2022

Some photos:

We had a good sleep last night🌙. Woke about 7-8 had a tidy up, packed bags, dressed my gammy finger, then went for a short walk. We found a great little cafe/ bakery just of Via del Tritone, coffee, tea, croissants and cigarette smoke from the table next door. Next we found the TIM mobile phone shop at the end of Tritone, and got fitted out with 2 Italian aims on the spare phones by a nice efficient young bloke called Olivier. It cost about $120 but we’re kitted out with data and mobile for 5 weeks in Italy and rest of the EU + Switzerland and Great Britain. We walk back to the cafe and get a bufalo mozzarella and tomato panini for lunch on the trip to Sorrento.

We need a taxi to get to Termini (Romes Centrale station) for our 12 midday train to Naples. Finding a cab in Rome is hard work, our TIM sims haven’t kicked into gear so we can’t use the apps they recommend and back at the hotel there are no staff to help so we hit the street. A taxi rank near us isn’t yielding so I wave a guy down on Tritone, he had a passenger but said he’d come back. Yeah right! The next bloke said €20 then €28 then drove off and left us. Then in the distance we see old mate  he came back, said he uses a meter but it should be about €15-16, he got us through heavy traffic and  the meter is €17 so we give him €20, and the change is his, an honourable honest cabby, worth the tip.

Our train is a Frecciarosso, a bit over an hour to Naples. Train is 9519, the Navigator is impatient, it’s in the board but no Binario (platform) is allocated yet and she wants to be on it ready to go. Patience isn’t one of her strong points, let’s say more.

Eventually it comes up on the board Binnario 8, we scan our ticket on the machine to get in, walk quickly to Car 8, the Navigator mumbling to slow walkers words to the effect ” oh for christ sake, get out of the f…g way!” I agree, she’s right.

The seats are good, we share with a young English couple. A Train 9519 takes off rattling along at about 250-300k/hour, the Swiss and Germans  and even the young Belgium guy on the plane suggest Italian trains are not on time and inefficient. That’s not been our experience, I like Italian trains.

In Naples on time at 1.30, then we struggle a little to find the Circumvesuviana line to Sorrento. The Navigator is struggling with steps and breath but we eventually sort it out. €4.20 per Ticket, Binnario 4 leaving at 1.57. A scammer gives directions thinking he’s been a help, he gets €1 to piss off, next time I won’t be so generous.

The train is on time, its rattler, lots of people heading to Pompei, very snug, we get a seat and keep the bags close, it’s notorious for pickpockets and thieves. A busking violinist gets on the train, everyone trying to earn a Euro, but it’s not that appealing and not that good. He’s not getting any of my Euros.

We arrive at Sant Agnello train station, no markings, Google maps gets us 950 metres through the alleyways to Cocomello Road and Villa St Angelo. Nearly all the others are here so it’s a great reunion with we see all the time to others we see rarely. We push off commercial quantities of alcohol, gin in particular , eat lovely food at a great restaurant around the corner.

It’s been a long day again.

Ciao for now – Pauolo

There are a few reasons you pay to upgrade a flight to Business or First Class –  1. Space and privacy 2. Dickheads who have the extra leg room in front of you and then do the full recline at 8am in the morning. I’d like to smack the slouching, cringing, fat, bald prick with the ugly fat head and hairy neck right in his hairy ear hole. There, I feel better by a little bit, but the top of his head is  so close I can see scars of his failed hair transplant on the top of his head, he is a hairy hairy dude except for the top of his fat head. Let’s leave it alone now, Brussells is only five hours away before I have to deal with tight schedule pressures.

I see Kirkuk on the map as I’m watching “The Phantom of the Open”, I think that’s where they found Sadam in a hole in the ground. Then we head over Sarajevo, so much conflict and tragedy in those places. We’re lucky in some parts of the world to have some isolation.

Oh I just remembered, The Queen died last night. Sad news really, she’s kept the whole monarchy going, wonder how Charles and Camilla are going to go. Camilla is about as popular as Meaghan at the moment. Anyway as far as I’m concerned the monarch as Australian Head of State is a joke BUT what we have now is a joke. My thoughts, keep the same structure we have but the Governor General is selected a different way and is accountable to somebody or something else. Keep the Australian flag but take the Union Jack off it.

Old mate in front is that close that I can see and bits of his emails. I wonder if his name is Dick because there are a lot of  emails to and from a chap named “Balz” . The content always starts with “Hallo Balz” but I don’t see how he signs off, but lets assume his name is Dick. Now it’s clear to me that Dick and Balz are close, they talk about exports to Korea, hope it’s not f…. North Korea, but with his  ignorant attitude and his two dodgy looking mates beside him it’s possible. He moved his seat upright for five minutes, got a spray of lemonade on his scone from the cabin steward when she gave him a chicken sandwich to eat, hope the Mamma Cass experience finds him.  Using “Hallo” to start an email I’m assuming they are from a Nordic country, they have a Norwegian/Finnish sort of accent, the bits that are in English that is. I know it’s not illegal to fully tilt your chair back, but never the less it annoys me. Anyway I hope Balz and Dick are close, because Dick doesn’t strike as someone with a lot of mates.

It’s now clear Brussells might be a problem.

Righto, let’s just clarify that again, Brussels is definitely a problem, we bound out of the plane in Brussels to see a pretty raven haired girl with a sign “Reid – Rome”, at her direction with her leading we run to a special exit called “The Fastlane” with a card saying we are a priority to pass emigration (European) and and fastrack to our boarding gate. Bit just like Race Around the World there is a road block, Brussels Airport staff lock the access doors while they are having a break, and Fastrack becomes a roadblock. We are trapped in a Dr Who like parallel universe, we can’t go forward and wr cant really go back, Finally they open the big electric doors and the staff amble in to man the security check, no rush despite the raven haired girl explaining the situation an we aren’t the only ones. A dozy security bloke sits me aside because my knees set the metal detector off, he’s f…ng around letting some kids through until I say “mate, I’m in a real hurry can you pat me down quickly” he dawdled along runs hos hands all over me then the the hand detector, all clear and we run with passports belts, watches to the gate.

The result – we missed the plane by about 3 minutes. The raven haired girl and The Navigator and I gather ourselves, catch our breathe, pack stuff away and walk all the way back to exit Brussels Arrivals and then enter Brussels Departures. By the time we find the Alyseo counter ( they do Qatar and other bookings as an agent) we’re exhausted, sweating and to be fair a little pissed at the world. It’s been 3 days of f….ups and early starts and late ends. I know it started because Qatar had engine problems and turned a plane around and the daisy chain effect meant we were going to be impacted, but today would have been much better with a 90 minute turnaround instead of a 50 minute turnaround, especially when there is so much confusion and so many changes happening. I’d have been happy if we’d been booked on the plane we ended up on instead of the one we missed. Lesson – I think I said it when I was in Laos Thailand recently, a bigger gap is easier to handle than a rush when weather or traffic jams on runways delay flights. This I say as somebody now well over 60 and not wanting a heart attack. And you lose things when you rush and pull things out and put back in because of security checks and the like.

Geert at the Alyseo counter is fantastic, we are booked on the ITA Flight ( Italian Airlines) 6:15:flight to get into Rome at 8:30pm, which means 1 hour + for the travel into Rome, and a likely 10:00-10:30 checkin. Geert gives us 2 x 18 Euro food vouchers compliments of Qatar, then we go through security all over again to get to gate A45. Geert is great.

We spend the vouchers at a Cafe restaurantnear our gate, a Marguerita pizza, a chocolate mousse, a big beer and a soft drink cleans up 37 Euros, the rest us a tip. The pizza is bellisimo.

The are no dramas without dramas when you are tired. We board the plane, we are in B seats ( the middle) in different rows, but that’s ok. The last few days have been so testing so Sorrento will need to be a chill time for a few days until we catch our breath.

There is a bloke snoring so loudly everyone on the plane can hear him. We arriveclose to on time, the airport is very busy, and miraculously our bags are the first on the carousel.

A 50 Euro taxi ride to the front door and we work out how to get into our accomodation. 11pm. A quick walk to Trevi Fountain, a gelato, a walk down towards The Pantheon, and a lot of the pain is gone. Rome is like that, sort a bit magical. Tomorrow is travelling again, the train to Sorrento and meeting up with some other travellers.

Ciao from Rome – Pauolo

Finally the Qatar staff pull it all together, thanks to two lovely young women who show the male staff up big time when it comes to courtesy and efficiency, and no thanks to one over officious bloke who didn’t want us sitting in the wheelchair area while we are waiting. We get our passports back with visa’s and a hotel, meal allocation and instructions to leave the building via immigration and customs and somebody would be waiting for us to transport us to the hotel. That actually all works out, and we’re on a bus with 2 young poms, an Irish couple heading home to Dublin and an expat Irishman heading to Ireland to see family. The Irish couple are well travelled, I think anyway, because I can hardly understand a word he says and he speaks very softly.

We’re at the Century Hotel Doha, we get a lovely suite, enormous room, loungeroom, and a bathroom as big as most hotel rooms. And it’s f…. hot, and humid, my camera fogs up, I’m sweating, can’t wait to get a t shirt on.

We go for a walk to a “market” , the Navigator is keen for some shopping, but where we are is in the boonies, it’s a 1km walk to the souk and we’re tired and hot so we go back to the hotel for dinner with some fellow travellers. The meal allowance well and truly covers our meals which are fair not brilliant. The chicken is pretty stringy, I reckon they chased an old rooster around a remote oasis, knocked it’s head off in the sand with a scimitar before transporting it 300km in an air conditioned Landcruiser then selling it in Qatar hotel restaurants as chicken breast . The predictive spelling wants to say ” breastfeeding”, I’m fighting WordPress’s inappropriatness as I write this on my Samsung phone. F…..g technology! Drives me mad sometimes. Anyway the Baba Ganoush is fresh and very tasty, and I didn’t take it via a breastfeeding experience.

The Navigator has trouble with the shower, but manages. She doesn’t like the rain shower, can’t explain why. There is a nightclub going until about 1am then at 4am the call to prayer followed by the 2 alarms and the wakeup call. As well as that the fire alarm goes off, so we’re up and ready early. The hotel razor is a blunt as my pocket knife so only a small part of my face is sans whiskers. Pain at 4am isn’t what I feel I need.

The bus is ready for the early starters at 5am and we leave on the 2nd bus at about 5.30am. There is a spectacular sunrise through the fog/smog/heat haze over the Doha skyline and the sea. Doha airport is busy busy, and eventually we find our gate via the information desk, it does come up on the board a bit later. Gate B7 is a long walk, a coffee and croissant costs about 64 dirhams ($24), but something (ie caffeine) in the belly is important this time of day.

We’re finally inside B7, flight is boarding on time, however due to a line-up to takeoff we’re behind schedule already. Brussels and Rome here we come, but as The Navigator points out, we’re now under the pump to get our connecting flight from Brussells to Rome

Ciao from Doha – Paulo

Flight QR909  Zone 4 ( this is us in seats 51D & E) is not Business or 1st Class, its Economy, its us, and Zone 4 is the last to board, but the Qatar staff are great, the plane is nice. It’s a bit later than 7am when we get off the ground though.

We have 2 babies in the row in front of us but so far the little tackers are not screaming. Neither are the mother and father, very unAustralian behaviour.

Breakfast includes an offer of alcohol, odd for an Arabic airline, so in defference to my belief of not being pissed by morning tea time I sip apple juice with my banana bread, yoghurt and cup of tea.

Next I watch the movie “Operation Mincemeat” , a true story (I’m assuming they added a fictitious love story and some conflict for effect) of the British misleading the Germans in WWII prior to the Normandy landings. My headphone plug ( plane side – a negative for Qatar but only a minor issue) is shot and crackles badly so I revert to a Blues Playlist I have ready on my phone with obscure and great (my view only) blues songs and singers. This includes artists like; All Them Witches, Billy D & The Hudoos, Beth Hart, Joe Boamassa,  Chis Beard, Champion JackDupree, Gary Clarke Jnr, Jim Suhler & Monkeybeat and others. I blow up my pillow, turn thr noise cancelling on, turn the music up loud, recline ( just a little) and get into the groove with my eyes closed. 14-15 hours is a fair bit of music.

Nearly 10 hours in and the passengers are still pretty civil, hardly any babies or kids are crying or obnoxious. Other than the length of the trip there isn’t anything to whine about. Yet.

Finally arrived in Doha, it’s a mess, the staff are trying hard to sort out who goes on or who is staying in Doha. I think they are trying to get us permission from Qatar immigration to take us into a hotel in Doha, but the are people everywhere and one of the Qatar airline guys has our boarding passes, our passports and our vaccine certificates. If he’s not back soon The Navigator is going to hunt him down and kill him.

I’ll update later

2.30am the alarm goes off, then the 2nd and 3rd alarm and then the hotel wakeup call. This is after I woke with a sudden feeling I had missed the alarms, my watch showed 3.15, at least I thought it did, I jumped out of bed and raced around to check the digital clock without glasses on, couldn’t see what it said, raced to the bathroom and turned the light on and my watch shows 12.15am. Meanwhile The Navigator sleeps on blissfully unaware of my panic, panic is normally The Navigators job. Not to say I don’t panic, it’s just that I try to hide it, but she picks it up in my eyes and then asks questions that provoke uncalled for smart arse comments from me. There you go, I feel I’m being a little conciliatory by saying this, sort of like going to a Smart Arse Annonomous meeting, I’veactually admitted that I’m addicted to making sarcastic uncalled for comments to people close to me. Not sure how many steps there are in this SAA thing? Il Maestro and Il Banditore, pay attention, you might like to join me at a meeting.

So, it’s 3am, f… it’s early, downstairs, checkout, $30 cab ( he didn’t turn the meter on!!!, I didn’t notice), but fair enough at that time of the day. Qatar CheckIn is good, we’re dealing with humans, and nice and helpful ones at that, then on to wait at the “gate of no return” for 1/2 an hour until it opens at 4am. The line up is long, but we’re at the front, sort of. Security check and again the Gopro and its bits and pieces throw them, I’m going to have to change tactics and put it in my check in bag.

We’re scheduled to leave at 7am. That’s good news. Fingers crossed we get given a hotel room in Doha, they said that there would be somebody meeting us in Doha to sort that stuff out.

Ciao from Sydney, next post from Doha – Pauolo.

Let’s start the day with a little confusion, Qatar have had “issues” with the flight to Australia, so Lagente called to say things with flights are in a state of flux, I’d say things are fluxed, but let’s see.

After that news I was trying to deadlock the bedroom window and dropped the window onto my left hand, nearly guillotined my left index finger off. But after a lot of phrases all starting with “Flux”, blood over the floor, blended with ice and tissues the blood flow slows, the throbbing pain settle, just a little. IDT ( the nurse) drops in and attends to some clinical work, I attend to finding pain killers. The end of my finger is looking a bit black and blue, I’ll probably lose the nail, but most importantly I think I’ll live.

We get to the airport in plenty of time, check in is fine, final correct weight is declared – me = 13.3kg The Navigator = 12.6kg.

Then the dreaded security check, this us Dubbo by the way, Genelle is fine, but i do have a red mark on my shoulder so I get the pat down, its skin, bone and a small amount of muscle, so not sure what the machine has picked up, maybe theres a ghost sneaking through with me. I dunno. Anyway then I have my back pack pulled apart and then have my Bose headphones inspected for explosives or drugs ( who knows?) , then I’m question sternly about my Gopro case, ” What is this implement?” Answer “It’s a GoPro camera”, Question ” What does this thing do?, Answer ” It’s a camera”, and ” So what does it do?”, Answer ” Have a wild hairy arsed guess!”

More comedy occurs mid flight. The blood drains from The Navigators face when the pilot advises us there is a “technical problem, bit it’s ok, no concern, just don’t be alarmed when you hear one engine working harder as we come into land” . Of course it’s all ok.

The Navigator then has trouble with her Opal Card, she has to top it up but the machine won’t take her credit card, so they send a 20 something year old over with her to “helpdesk” her through it.

Next issue is our Qatar flight has been cancelled from tonight to 7am tomorrow. They book us into the Stamford Plaza, swish joint, used to stay here on Elders years ago, a $40/person meal voucher and a refund for a taxi promised, but, we have to be at the airport at 3.30am. Then we have to stay a night in Doha (Qatar will pay we think), then fly to Rome via Brussells, with a 1 hour changeover in Brussells. The life of a jetset traveller ain’t that appealing I have to say.

So it’s grilled barramundi, some painkillers for the finger, a beer for the stress and an early night.

Ciao from Sydney – Pauolo

The usual last minute jobs are on the list, things like ” test pool”, “mow lawn”, “advise bank of travel”, of course The Navigator doesn’t need a paper list, it’s in her head, unlike her other paper stuff spread all over the house. To be fair she has cleaned the paper up and sorted our hard copy travel documents into 2 piles, each about 1kg in weight, heavier than the medical kit she carries. One pile for her and one for me ( just in case).

One thing on the list was ” set up security cameras”, I had acquired a security camera kit from Bunnings after much research into 1080 v 2k, subscription v non subscription and other stuff I didnt really understand. Then excitedly I took it all out of the box and laid it out like instruments on a surgeons tray ready to operate, then I stalled at step 1 of the manual. The f…g thing wouldn’t connect to my phone, with an American accented voice saying “Cannot connect to the internet, try again”, so many times I was ready to pelt it out the window, or at The Navigator advising from the side with suggestions at a time when she might have been better to stay silent. Reluctantly I deferred to younger, more tech savvy, infinitely more patient family members ( thanks Mark & Tobe) who sorted through the issues, rearranged some of the bits and pieces, and after 2 days it’s finally working. I’m normally pretty patient but technology and The Navigator advising but not “doing” takes me to the limit.

The Navigator is a good packer, I have to acknowledge that, she can travel with 10-12 kg. However the other day I arrived back from Sydney there was a look of mild panic on her face, she had packed her bag and it was weighing 22kg and she didn’t think she could reduce the weight much more. She weighed it using the travel scales we use. I checked the scales and she had set them on pounds not kilos, crisis averted, 22 lbs = 10kg, so now she’s gone looking for more shoes and extra medical kit to get the weight up. We travel with a medical kit that most paramedics could not fit in an ambulance.

Last night I culled again, sorted money stuff, camera gear, today I’ll repack and hopefully get my bag to about 13-14 kg or less.

Getting ready for travelling is so stressful for a “perfectionist”, I can never find perfection, I try and cover everything and every situation with my packing, and it’s impossible, I still end up with too much, or too little ( in my head). Anyway you look at it, it’s a first world problem, having too much choice is not a problem.

The little container of Tim’s ashes is packed, we’ll leave him at places we haven’t left him before. The last 2 drops were in the Andaman Sea off Thailand and a moving little Buddhist ceremony on the Mekong River four weeks ago.

Tonight we heard that our flight from Doha to Rome has been cancelled, so we’re waiting hear back from Sonya regarding the options, if there are any, of getting from the Middle East to Rome. Fingers crossed that we find a way.

By the way, bag weights at the moment The Navigator 12.8kg Pauolo 12.4kg

Ciao from Pauolo in Dubbo for a day longer